Hazards of the Sea: Three Centuries of Challenge in Southern Waters by Captain John Noble

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Foredges are sunned. Dust jacket has small tears to top edge and is now enclosed in a glossy protective dust jacket cover.

In 1622, the East Indiaman Tyral was wrecked on the coast of what is now Western Australia. More than 300 years later, the inter-island passenger ship Wahine sank while entering Wellington Harbour during a violent storm. In the intervening three centuries, there have been many tragic and dramatic events in the seas around Australia and New Zealand. Captain John Noble, a Port Phillip sea pilot, describes in this book some of the more significant episodes in this dramatic story.

Contains well-known, as well as less-known stories, not only of shipwrecks but of mutiny and piracy, of collision and fire at sea, of castaways and survivors adrift, of blackbirders and convict transports. Captain Noble writes with a professional knowledge of the perils of the sea and the arts of seamanship, and he incorporates in his accounts of shipping disasters, some interesting information about the lighthouses built as a result of these disasters, of the maritime courts of inquiry, of the methods of calculating time and distance at sea, and of the origins of seafaring terms and customs. (book flap)